Lessons to Learn
by Taylor Hayes
Summary: <html><head></head>Oneshot, in which a younger brother is reaped for the Games, and his older brother volunteers. Rated for the violent deaths of children and one use of profanity.</html>


**Lessons to Learn**

The goal of the Hunger Games had always been simple: remind the Districts of their place. For this reason, the Gamemakers knew that they sometimes had to become a bit more involved with the deaths of the Tributes than might be considered sporting. The people of the Capital, for the most part, didn't realize how often those in control of the Games would tweak and pinch and fix things so that the Games lasted no longer than they needed to. The times when they had been drawn out, most of the attention that was required had been lost.

One year, however, was the opposite. The 58th Annual Hunger Games were remembered with a strange sense of detached fear. So much had happened in so short a time that no one had quite known what to make of it. There was so much worth remembering, while also equally being so little.

That had been the year where the name of a 13-year-old boy, gangly, thin-limbed, too smart for his District, had been drawn. And his older brother, 17, features an odd dichotomy of masculine jaw and nose, feminine lips and eyelashes, golden hair and tanned skin, already tall and growing into his broad shoulders, had volunteered. His face had been emotionless, set, green eyes cold. There was no panic, no yelling or hysterics. He had simply placed himself between the Peacekeepers and the younger boy and calmly told them to fuck off, because he'd be in the arena instead. Whatever goodbye he'd said to his brother in the small room set aside before he boarded the train to the Capital, no one knew. They had no other living family, so his brother was taken in by an older man in the community, a former friend of their father's before some sort of fight caused the two to break off contact.

The tribute was from a poor district, with no training grounds, no history of Careers, and only two former victors. When both men approached him, he ignored their suggestions, their remarks, their attempts to train and prepare him. His arrival at the Capital continued in much the same vein. While he did nothing to make people angry, he also ignored them, never going out of his way to appease or appeal to them. No one expected much. His costume in the Parade was lackluster at best, his interview with Flickerman was like pulling teeth, he didn't take part in any of the training. Everyone simply assumed he was still in shock, or perhaps preparing himself to die. He had come out of his private session with the Gamemakers given an overall score of 3, especially low considering that, even if he had no skills, he was six feet in height and moved with a graceful, almost predatory purpose. He had rangy muscles that were clearly born of hard work and likely meant physical strength. He had watched the other tributes careful, eyes measuring, weighing, throughout the days among them. And yet, it was no show put on to prove to those observing what he was capable of, so they brushed it aside.

Then they were in the arena, and it was like watching a bloodthirsty animal set loose on livestock.

He ran straight for the Cornucopia, met one Career and one other tribute, all aiming for the same pack of supplies. With nothing but his hands, he snapped one's neck and bashed the other's head against the Cornucopia twice, killing him. Then he took the pack and loped off away from the clearing. No more than twenty minutes passed before he had the knife from the pack in hand and was stalking the arena floor. The trees and bush were thin, no good cover, yet he managed to blend in well enough to sneak up on four separate tributes in an hour, drawing the sharp blade easily across each throat, killing them instantly.

One of the girls had had a bow and a number of arrows with her. He gathered them and headed back to the Cornucopia. From the edge of the forest, he pulled out the long range weapon and sighted down at the Careers gathered confidently, laughing about the earlier bloodshed they had wrought as they feasted on what food had ended up piled between them. Then the air seemed to whistle, as one arrow was released after another, and there was screaming and cursing and ducking for cover.

Three minutes and five arrows was all it took to cut the Pack from seven down to three. And one of their number, while not yet dead, was slowly going, a deep puncture through her lower abdomen leaking in such a way that she would bleed out over an extended period of time, in agony every minute.

Of twenty-four Tributes, already the cannon had sounded fifteen times.

The remaining Careers hunkered down inside the slight cover of the Cornucopia, one girl and one boy watching in confusion, surprise, disgust, terror they tried to keep hidden, as the third of them took four hours to finally wheeze her last breath. By then, the boy who everyone had written off hunted down and killed the other five teens who had been Reaped. Two sliced throats, one strangled, one pushed off a cliff, one hamstrung before receiving a heavy rock to the head.

As the darkness set in, he came back. The fight was over before it began. Despite preparing and working and believing themselves ready, the two Careers that had lasted longest could not stand up to the calm, instinctive fighting of the boy they had ignored throughout training. Less than ten minutes, and the girl was gone, nose smashed up into her brain, and the boy was pinned to the ground by a plethora of knives, quietly crying as he died.

In less than a day, a tribute had laid waste to the arena's inhabitants. Before the expected time for the names and faces of the fallen to flash across the sky, everyone except him was cold and dead, and he was out, only mildly dirty, one or two cuts, and being crowned the newest Victor.

There was horror and shock; the Capital was furious, the Districts were reeling. And the Victor gave the few who claimed to be his adoring fans, including Caesar Flickerman in his second interview, the same dangerously distant stare as before he went in.

Those who would normally attempt to manipulate him, force him to interact with the people of the Capital, flirt and sleep with them, do anything they asked, wisely chose to leave him be, packing him onto the train back out to his District as soon as they were able.

And if perhaps there was a reason that his younger brother's name was never called again until the child was too old to be Reaped, no one could prove it.

The Gamemakers had learned that day that, while drawn out Games were boring, Games that went too fast were worse. They had been taught by Dean Winchester, Victor of the 58th Annual Hunger Games, and they would not forget.

…

… …

…

_a/n In canon, Dean has walked into two separate vampire nests at different times and proceeded to _wipe them out_. His kill count is absurd. In Purgatory, he was known and feared. You remember Purgatory, right? Monster Heaven, and they heard about Dean and were scared. I have no doubt monsters tell stories about Dean Winchester hiding under their bed or in their closet, or being just around a dark corner or in the back of their car, waiting. And in a world where there are no monsters to hunt, just a paranoid John who forced his boys to learn to survive, and a bunch of kids - that, if Dean hadn't been there to volunteer, probably wouldn't have spared a second thought to killing Sammy - between him and getting home to his baby brother… There would be no hesitation, no remorse. Just a storm of destruction and death._

_That's all._


End file.
